This blog is about the book 'CONFIDENTIAL: The Life of Secret Agent Turned Hollywood Tycoon Arnon Milchan.' The biography of a legendary Hollywood producer.
Cover image: Milchan embraces Arafat. A James Bond fan, Arafat thought he was embracing a film producer who had just introduced him to one of the original Bond's, Sean Connery. Arafat never realized he was schmoozing a top Israeli intelligence asset. - SCROLL DOWN:

Friday, December 20, 2013

By Joseph GelmanThe dark corners of the internet are ablaze with rage. A leading
Jewish Hollywood producer, Arnon Milchan, has recently come in from the cold as
an Israeli nuclear spy. Could there possibly be a greater stereotype for the Israel-hater
to harp upon?

The most prolific accusation to be heard from the
usual suspects is the word “traitor”,
which in this case says more about the accuser than the accused. The producer
of such movies as Pretty Woman, LA Confidential, and this year’s Oscar
favorite Twelve Years a Slave, is
neither a US citizen nor a permanent resident of the United States. So who
exactly is he a traitor to? Hypocrisy and lies about spies are as American as apple pie.
The US spends over $52 billion annually on covert intelligence gathering,
including the financing of a CIA-Hollywood unit for messaging to the masses. Simply
put, there is no country in the world that spends even a fraction of its
resources on the level of spying on other countries that the United States does.

There is a legitimate case to be made that that is a good
thing.

But what is not
good, and is even ugly, are the self-righteous, indignant claims of outrage and
displays of cheep patriotic bravado when somebody is found to be doing in our
country far less than what we routinely do abroad, every single day. Like in the movie Casablanca, they are shocked, SHOCKED to learn that there is gambling going on in this establishment!

“ –Current specifications, vulnerabilities, capabilities and
planned upgrades to national telecommunications infrastructure, networks and
technologies used by government and military authorities, in intelligence and
security services, and the public sector….Details about command, control and communications systems and facilities….
National leadership use of and dependencies on a dedicated telecommunications
infrastructure…. Details about information repositories associated with radio
frequency identification (RFID)-enabled systems used for passports, government
badges and transportation systems… personal phone numbers, fax numbers and
e-mail address of principle civilian and military leaders… Details about
wireless infrastructure, cellular communications capabilities and makes and
models of cellular phones and their operating systems, to include second generation
and third generation systems… Details about foreign and domestic
telecommunications service providers and vendors… Details about…”

etc… etc… We know all of this jaw-dropping information because Bradley Manning, a United States Army soldier who was convicted
this year of violations of the US Espionage Act had released the
embarrassing and classified Rice memo to Wikileaks.
And that was well before US Intelligence Analyst Edward Snowden released the mother-load; the
entire US intelligence “black budget”, which clearly showed Israel to be a "priority target” of US espionage...
right there in black and white. In fact, with the Snowden releases, it seems that every week brings new revelations of US spying on Israel and other allies. It's the "gift" that keeps on giving.

Both cases of self-inflicted damage to US Intelligence (Manning and Snowden),
amount to nothing short of smoking-gun evidence of aggressive US spying on
Israel, on a massive scale for such a small country… far beyond anything that Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan, or lowly GS-12 Navy
Analyst making less than $40,000 a year, with no access to vital secrets, Jonathan Pollard, had, or even
could inflict upon the United States in their wildest dreams. SIDE NOTE: With both Manning and Snowden being WASP's, like Aldrich Ames, John Walker,Ronald Pelton and so many others, one might cynically wonder if WASP's should be viewed as potentially disloyal to US national security interests... as paranoid anti-Semites would have it with Jews. In the meantime, as the usual suspects question Jewish loyalties from the luxury of their armchairs, three Jewish-Americas working for the US government and who were likely US intelligence assets, are rotting in enemy prisons at this very moment, basically abandoned by their own government (see the bottom of this post for their shocking predicament), and predictably ignored by the usual suspects.

Thankfully however, no American is rotting in an Israeli jail
and few Israelis are throwing childish anti-American temper tantrums in dark
corners of the internet because of these US spying revelations.

The reverse cannot be said to be true. It appears that more
than a few of our fellow Americans are less than adults about these matters, and
tend towards whining and grudge-holding. How do they think the
United States even found out about the Israeli nuclear program in 1958? By a
U-2 spy plane violating Israel’s airspace, that’s how. Conspiratorial anti-Semites also love to whine about the accidental Israeli attack on the USS Liberty off the coast of Egypt in the midst of the fog of the 1967 Six Day War... but for some strange reason, they never seem to mention what the USS Liberty actually was. It was; a US spy ship.

Even the most egregious case of Israeli spying in the United
States involving Jonathan Pollard, was primarily a case of Israeli spying inthe United States as opposed to
spying onthe United States. A distinction with a real meaning, because intentions and context in the
world of espionage actually matter. Unlike the above mentioned, Pollard intended no harm to the United States, and he was
never charged with treason or aiding an enemy state. That is an inconvenient FACT that knee-jerk, armchair "patriots" never bother to concern themselves with. He was
charged with violating Title 18 of the United States Code, section 794(a), divulging classified material. That's it.Those who claim greater harm to the United
States beyond the public charges against Pollard, speak as though they are privy to information
that is not available to others. A tactic reminiscent of the old Soviet
Union, where the accused was routinely deemed guilty by way of secret or
concealed evidence that only the politically connected and those “in the know” are supposedly privy to.

As spelled out clearly in the recently declassified 1987 CIA Damage Assessment Report on the Jonathan Pollard case,Pollard’s Israeli handler,
spymaster Rafi Eitan, who also ran Arnon Milchan and had personally captured
war criminal Adolph Eichmann years earlier, was
seeking nuclear, military and technical information on Israel’s surrounding
Arab states – not on the United States.

They were seeking to tap into US intelligence to garner
information on their regional enemies, which might help in their ongoing struggles
to survive in a bad neighborhood. Information that in hindsight, probably should have been provided through official channels in any event. That is what the public information is clear
about. All the rest is justice by “wink-wink-nod-nod, we know what was really
going on and you don't.” The most common of the lowly lies are that Pollard gave away codes.... or that he gave away names of agents in foreign countries.... etc... None of which he did; none of which he was accused of; none of which he was charged with; none of which he was convicted of; and none of which he even had access to had he wanted to commit such a crime in the first place, given his lowly position. Shame on those who continue to make such accusations without producing the slightest evidence, and continue to portray Pollard as some kind of super-spy in complete contradiction to the CIA Damage Assessment Report in this case, which is available for anyone to read.

Yes, a government employee releasing any form of classified US intelligence to a foreign
country, friendly or not, is an illegal act to be sure, and it was not the bumbling, lowly Jonathan Pollard’s call to
make, no matter how he justified it in his mind. When he was caught, he
was rightly sent to prison. But his outrageously over-the-top sentence was an act of serious corruption in itself. As Professor Angelo Codevilla, a former senior staffer on the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence who was there at the time, asserts: It was a case of a powerful man (Casper Weinberger), whispering sweet nothings in the ear of a corruptible judge (by way of a secret affidavit), who took it upon himself to then ignore a plea bargain and do the powerful man's personal bidding. Weinberger's last-minute letter to the judge, which is full of generalities and highly charged/prejudicial words, was devoid of any evidence. Weinberger, a man known for his anti-Israel leanings, who had called for strict measures against Israel following its bombing of the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981, made outrageous accusations against the accused for which he had no personal knowledge and no evidence, and for which the accused was never even charged with. Weinberger's last-minute private letter to the judge was declassified through a FOIA request in 2010. The long and short of it is that Pollard was sentenced by this judge to life in prison without a trial. WITHOUT A TRIAL. Even in the Soviet Union they pretended by at least conducting show trials.After almost thirty years, during which time the United States has routinely pressed Israel to release murdering terroristswith blood on their hands as "confidence building measures"... and after all of the truly aggressive US spying on Israel that has been so ingloriously exposed; Pollard’s continued
imprisonment is nothing short of a scandal resembling a hypocritical, old-school vendetta.It's gotten to the point where The United State is offering to exchange Pollard for the release of Palestinian terrorist murderers from Israeli jails. In other worlds, the US has stoop to holding a hostage to trade for murderers. With every passing day, Pollard looks more and more like a martyr and a victim sitting in a gulag, a hostage, rather than a criminal doing his just time. In a historical perspective, his case could very well be placed on the same level as that of the Alfred Dreyfus affair. Is that really in our best interest? And more importantly, is that really in the interest of American justice? Is it a dignified reflection of US Justice?

____________

People in our defense and security establishment are supposed to be brave, but we can pretty much take for granted that hardly anyone in those agencies, where conformity is valued above all, is brave enough to stand up and voice a principled opinion about the miscarriage of justice involving Jonathan Pollard. That might just be a career-ending event if they did... and they know it. But fortunately, plenty of good people have voiced their opinion on the matter after their career in government has ended: A few key people who are deeply familiar with the facts of the Pollard case are public supporters of clemency for Jonathan Pollard:

(A partial list)

Former National Security Advisor Bud McFarlane (was in the job when it happened)
Former FBI and CIA Director William Webster (was FBI Director when it happened)
Former Secretary of State George Shultz (was Secretary of State When it Happened)
Former Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Senator David Durenberger (was Chairman when it happened)
Former Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Congressman Lee Hamilton (was Chairman when it happened)
Former CIA Director James Woolsey
Former Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Senator Dennis DeConcini
Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger
Former Vice President Dan Quayle
Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey
Republican Senator John McCain
Former White House Counsel Bernard Nussbaum
Former Deputy Attorney General and Harvard Law Professor Philip Heymann
Former UN Ambassador and Governor of New Mexico Bill Richardson
Former Assistant Secretary of Defense Lawrence Korb

___________

Meanwhile, it might be noted that while Jonathan Pollard has been held for almost 30 years by the US Government.... no less than three Jewish-American's working for the United States Government are currently being held hostage for years in the dungeons of Iran, Pakistan and Cuba, with little or nothing (at least overtly) being done by the US government to free them, and little said about them by the usual suspect:

1. Warren Weinstein - Officially working for a "private company" doing work for USAID in Lahore Pakistan when he was kidnapped by al Qaeda on August 13, 2011. The latest video:

﻿2. Robert Levinson - A "retired" DEA and FBI agent, Levinson was taken hostage on March 9, 2007 on Iran's Kish Island. Note how until recently, the US has described him as a "private investigator". On December 12, 2013, the AP confirmed that he was working for the CIA. So the US's new story is that he was "on an unapproved mission". Yeah right. The United States has since reached political agreements with Iran without, in so far is known, even attempting to condition those agreements on Levinson's release. A shocking betrayal. 3. Alan Gross - In December of 2009, Alan Gross was arrested in Cuba while working as a USAID "private" subcontractor. He was caught with electronic communications equipment. He was/is still rotting in a Cuban jail as president Obama smilingly shook the hand of Cuba's President, Raul Castro, at the funeral for Nelson Mandela in South Africa. Gross is scheduled for release in over a decade from now in 2024.

4. And then of course there is Jonathan Pollard, held in a US gulag many years beyond anything that could even remotely be considered "justice". Note that all of these prisoners/hostages have long hair and beards.... and look similar in demeanor.

hypocrisy and lies about spies indeed.

________________________________________

Joseph Gelman is the co-Author of the book Confidential, The Life of Secret Agent
Turned Hollywood Tycoon Arnon Milchan, which outed one of the most prolific
producers in Hollywood history as a longtime spy for Israel’s Bureau of Science
Liaison.

Thursday, December 12, 2013

Congratulations to Israel for being accepted as the first non-European full member of CERN today, the prestigious European Organization for Nuclear Research, and the worlds largest ongoing science project. Given Israel's amazing scientific accomplishments, this was an easy call for CERN from a purely scientific perspective. As revealed in the book Confidential, Arnon Milchan was given a VIP tour of CERN on April 25, 2007. An interesting tidbit considering Milchan's key covert role in the Israeli nuclear program in decades past.

It may be early, but clearly, an epic battle for the Best Picture Academy Award is now on.... and everybody in the industry knows it. Arnon Milchan and Brad Pitt's 12 Years a Slave, will face off with Columbia Pictures' American Hustle, in an awards-season clash of the titans. Both movies have picked up the bulk of the Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild top nominations... which are historic barometers for the Oscars.

If 12 Years a Slave pulls it off, it will be the first Academy Award for Arnon Milchan, one of the most successful and prolific independent producers in Hollywood history. An award that would be long overdue, considering his massive portfolio. It is unknown how recent publicity surrounding Mr. Milchan's extracurricular biography as a former spy will affect the voting. Co-Author of Milchan's biography, Joseph Gelman, said the following:

"Given his massive body of work and contributions to the industry, if there is one person in Hollywood who deserves an Academy Award, it would be Arnon. 12 Years a Slave is a worthy and meaningful candidate for Best Picture. It is a movie that will stand the test of time as perhaps the definitive cinematic portrayal of America slavery, the most problematic institution in American history.

I don't think that American Hustle, a fun movie, brings that kind of gravitas to the table. It's not a serious movie. It is not a movie that people will look back on 20 years from now, or even a year from now, and say 'wow!' Hollywood likes to think of itself as a meaningful industry, in addition to being an entertainment industry.

Somewhere deep in Arnon's conscience, I know that he sees 12 Years a Slave as a small measure of repentance for past transgressions involving his activities in South Africa. It's an interesting story of redemption, and Hollywood loves stories of redemption. If Milchan wins the Oscar for this important movie, I would put that as the final scene in the movie version of his biography. A real closing of a circle. A "Hollywood ending" if you will.

Meir and I will be pulling for 12 Years a Slave, not because of Arnon, but because frankly, it's the best movie of the year. It's that simple."

Following his breakup with Jennifer Aniston in 2004 and hounded by the paparazzi, Brad Pitt moved to Arnon Milchan's house in Malibu. As described in Confidential, Top secret "Operation Brad" involved Pitt traveling to and from the studio by entering and exiting Milchan's garage on a motorcycle with a black full-face helmet, rendering him unrecognizable. Pitt met Angelina Jolie on the set of Milchan's Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

Almost ten years later, Pitt is moving in with Milchan again, this time to his movie production company New Regency.

Hollywood Reporter: "Pitt's Plan B production company, which is riding high on recent hits 12 Years a Slave and World War Z, will exit its home of eight years when its deal with Paramount expires at the end of 2013. Plan B, which Pitt runs with Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner, is headed toward a three-year deal withArnonMilchan's New Regency, producer of 12 Years."

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Over the past few weeks, The 'Confidential' saga has been covered on every continent other than Antarctica... by every major news outlet in the world. Below is a tiny sampling of literally hundreds upon hundreds of articles. Links provided:

Monday, November 25, 2013

Stories about Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan's alleged double life have been circulating for years.

Now, the Israeli businessman behind hits like "Pretty Woman," ''Fight Club" and "L.A. Confidential" has finally come forth with a stunning admission — for years he served as an Israeli spy, buying arms on its behalf and boosting its alleged nuclear program.

In a far-reaching interview aired Monday with Israel's Channel 2 TV's flagship investigative program "Uvda," Milchan detailed a series of clandestine affairs in which he was involved and particularly how he helped purchase technologies Israel allegedly needed to operate nuclear bombs.

"I did it for my country and I'm proud of it," said Milchan, who ran a successful fertilizer company in Israel before making it big in Hollywood.

Even there, he says he continued with his clandestine work while maintaining close ties with Israel's leadership.

According to an unauthorized biography published two years ago, Milchan worked for Israel's now-defunct Bureau of Scientific Relations, known as Lekem, which worked to obtain information for secret defense programs. The bureau was disbanded in 1987 after it was implicated in the spying affair for which Jonathan Pollard, a civilian intelligence analyst for the U.S. Navy, was sentenced to life in prison.

Milchan also says other big Hollywood names were connected to his covert affairs.

"When I came to Hollywood I detached myself completely from my physical activities to dedicate myself to what I really wanted — filmmaking," he said. "(But) sometimes it gets mixed up."

The 68-year-old Milchan founded the New Regency film company and has produced more than 120 movies since the 1970s, working closely with directors such as Martin Scorsese, Roman Polanski, Sergio Leone and Oliver Stone. He forged an especially close relationship with Robert De Niro, who along with actors Russell Crowe and Ben Affleck, is featured in Uvda's broadcast.

"I had heard but I wasn't sure," De Niro said, of Milchan's activities. "I did ask him once and he told me that he was an Israeli and of course he would do these things for his country."

I'm not a journalist, but I play one on TV...
I use other peoples material and pretend like its mine

ILANA DAYAN'S ATTEMPTED HIJACKING OF 'CONFIDNTIAL'

Based entirely on the book indeed: After watching the program, there is simply no question that the New York Times had it right and that book 'Confidential' served as the entire script for the Uvda show, in some cases almost word for word.

Her show would not have been even remotely possible without the book which served as her inspiration, her road map, her script and even her dialogue. Ilana Dayan gave a very quick "thanks to Joe Gelman and Meir Doron, the authors of the book" at the end of the show as the credits rolled... almost as an afterthought.

The authors are surly thankful for the "thanks", but fairness would dictate something a little more substantial than a legal ass-covering. ﻿

'Uvda' is Israel Channel 2's leading investigative reporting program, anchored by Ilana Dayan. A year ago, Channel 2 approached the authors of 'Confidential' for help in putting together an investigative program based on the groundbreaking reporting in the book. The authors agreed and co-author Meir Doron was interviewed extensively for background information.

The report aired on Monday, November 25.

As it turned out, a funny thing happened on the way to the airing of that program. Suddenly, Ilana Dayan and her staff began to describe their report as "exclusive discoveries", "for the first time", "until now only rumors"... etc... forgetting their source.

It should be noted that Mr. Milchan has never denied a single assertion in the book 'Confidential' despite every opportunity to do so, and had interviewed in person for tens of hours for the book. The Uvda program was merely Mr. Milchan's way of coming out and publically saying: THE BOOK IS ACCURATE.

In a desperate and obvious ploy to cover and deflect from her utter dependence on the book, Ilan Dayan then used a source, NBC's Robert Windrem, who was referred to her by anti-nuclear gadfly, Avner Cohen; both of whom are hard-left ideologues with a substantial history of an anti-Israel agenda. Windrem's contribution was based on and limited to his understanding of Milchan's activities in South Africa, written about extensively by the authors of Confidential.

With authors research in hand, Uvda's producers then made every effort to promote the show as original material and exclusive findings when it was not. Fortunately, aside from their own website (and the wildly unprofessional right-wing publication "Yisrael Hayom" in Israel), prior to the show, no serious publication agreed to cover the issue without crediting the book.

They refused to publish any report on the 'Uvda' story as a matter of journalistic principle. After being "badgered" by 'Ilana Dayan's producers to do a story, the New York Times responded that there is nothing in the Uvda story worthy of reporting on that has not already been revealed in the book 'Confidential' two years earlier, which the New York Times covered extensively.

Arguably, other than the many elements left out of the Uvda story that are in the book, the ONLY semi-meaningful elements in the 'Uvda' story that differ from 'Confidential' involve:

1) Mr. Milchan implicating former director Sidney Pollock in his espionage activities. Of course, Sidney Pollock is conveniently dead and is not in a position of confirm or deny Mr. Milchan's words. Out of respect to Mr. Pollack and his family, and out of journalistic integrity because it could not be reasonably confirmed, the authors of Confidential left that claim out of their book, refusing to take Mr. Milchan's sole word on that matter at face value.

2) The other element that 'Uvda' claims as 'groundbreaking' is Mr. Milchan's amazingly blatant assertion that he USED actor Richard Dreyfuss to lure one of the fathers of the hydrogen bomb, Author Biehl, to a meeting with Israeli intelligence. That story was mentioned in the book 'Confidential' on pages 137 and 138. The book gave both Mr. Milchan and Mr. Biehl's versions of the story and let the reader decide who was telling the truth, without directly and unfairly involving/implicating Mr. Richard Dreyfuss, who was an unwitting partner to the affair. 'Uvda' simply repeated that story but greatly highlighted the involvement of the Academy Award winning actor to increase the sex appeal of the story at Mr. Dryefuss expense. One wonders how Mr. Dryefuss feels about that? And it is surprising that Ilan Dayan did not seek a reaction from Mr. Dreyfuss, if only as a matter journalistic integrity.

But Ilana Dayan's cynical hijacking did not end there. In promoting the show, Uvda published material almost word for word from the Hebrew version of 'Confidential', and from an article in the respected news website Tablet Magazine, and even used an almost identical graphic for their story that was published in Tablet Magazine... and again claimed the revelations to be "for the first time"... "exclusive"... etc.... Below are posts of the two almost identical stories. I would challenge those who are fluent in English and Hebrew to find the "exclusivity" in the Uvda article:

In the end, Uvda and Ilana Dayan do have one achievement that cannot be denied or taken away; they successfully got Mr. Arnon Milchan on camera to publicly admit to the very serious clandestine activity that was revealed in the book 'Confidential', which he had not denied since the publication of the book in the first place. That alone is an impressive achievement on her part. Thus, one wonders why Ilana Dayan felt the need to embellish and claim "exclusive"... "for the first time" credit on the actual substance of journalistic discoveries that she had absolutely nothing to do with.

One of Israel's leading media critics, Dvorit Shargal put it best in her stinging report on the matter in her website Velvet Underground: "'Uvda' did not reveal Milchan's Secret Life" ... Confidential did that!

The Aftermath:
Perhaps one of the most appalling aspects of this journalistic malfeasance, were the efforts by Israel's channel 2 to block international media outlets from using their footage in reporting on the story. When NBC News' Andrea Mitchell called to seek approval to use Uvda footage on a story for NBC Nightly News' broadcast nationally in the US, Israel's channel 2 resisted giving authorization. In the end, NBC used the material after a legal determination that it fell under the "fair usage" rule for news.

So what we have here is Israel's channel 2 using other peoples material without extending due credit, and then throwing up roadblocks to those, like NBC News, who would use their material legitimately.

Thursday, November 21, 2013

VINDICATION FOR THE AUTHORS:
Milchan's secret has long been rumored and was the subject of a 2011 book by Meir Doron and Joseph Gelman called Confidential: The Life of Secret Agent Turned Hollywood Tycoon Arnon Milchan, which examined his recruitment by longtime politician and current Israeli president Shimon Peres back in the 1960s. Milchan was selected then as a liaison for the secretive Bureau of Scientific Relations, Lekem, which was founded to obtain technology and material for Israel's nuclear program. Over the years, the 68-year-old Milchan handled clandestine deals involving Israeli military acquisitions, and promoted Israeli's nuclear project. Getting Milchan to finally confess in detail in front of a camera was not an easy task, reveals Ilana Dayan, an investigative journalist and the host of Uvda, which opens its 20th season Monday night on Channel 2's Keshet Broadcasting with the Milchan story. Read the entire article here.

This isn’t the first time Milchan's role in Israeli arms dealings and intelligence has surfaced: Just two years ago authors Meir Doron and Joseph Gelman published a book titled “Confidential: The Life of Secret Agent Turned Hollywood Tycoon Arnon Milchan" – which alleged that Milchan was an operative for Israel's Bureau of Scientific Relations. The bureau, headed by spy-masters Benjamin Blumberg and Rafi Eitan, gathered information for secret defense-related programs, including Israel's alleged nuclear program. The bureau was closed after Jonathan Pollard was arrested for spying on behalf of Israel in 1986. The "Uvda" report does, however, contain some shocking new details about Milchan's work, including claims that other Hollywood bigwigs like the legendary, late director Sydney Pollack and at least one other Academy Award-winning actor, both figured into his work for Israel.

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Israel's Channel Two will premier its top investigative show with an explosive report based on the book 'Confidential'. The show, Uvda meaning 'fact' in Hebrew, will be aired on Monday, November 25 at 9:00 PM. Below is the lead promo that will be aired in heavy rotation until show time. Uvda is Israel's number-one rated investigative journalism show:

Based on the book 'Confidential', Israel's Channel 2 is to air an investigative journalism show on the life of Arnon Milchan, and have successfully secured Mr. Milchan's participation. This is the first interview on the matter that Mr. Milchan has agreed to do, fully two years after the publication of 'Confidential'. Below is the short promo for the show, to be aired on Monday at 9:00 PM in Israel:

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Israel's Channel 2 Ilana Dayan is not a pushover. She Interviewed Arnon Milchan for the Investigative show 'Uvda'. It has the potential to be a blockbuster of an interview if she did not hold back, and no back-room deals were cut.

A bird has just whispered in our ear, informing us that a lengthy interview with Hollywood Producer Arnon Milchan has been given to Israel's premier investigative journalism show 'Uvda', a few days ago. The show will air in prime time, 9:00 PM, in approximately two weeks. Channel 2 is Israel's most watched station, and Uvda is it's most important investigative show. The interviewer, Ilana Dayan is one of Israel's most respected investigative journalists. Channel 2 will begin promoting the show, which will also be its season premier, in the coming days.

Clearly, a number of crucial elements exposed in the book 'Confidential' will be discussed, and this may represent the first time that Arnon Milchan has agreed to discuss such matters publicly. We do not know exactly what was said in the interview, but we do know that the book 'Confidential' served as the significant resource for the interviewer. Ilana Dayan is not known to throw soft-balls, or to be used as a PR tool, so there is a good chance that the interview will be authentic and impactful. Stay tuned.

Monday, November 11, 2013

Pollard supporters are circulating a classified memo written by then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, which they say instructs the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv to “spy” on Israel. The document was released by WikiLeaks and published in the Guardian in 2010 and is included in the book, “The Life of Secret Agent Turned Hollywood Tycoon Arnon Milchan,” by Meir Doron and Joseph Gelman. If the same standard were applied to Rice as has been applied to Pollard, Rice might be in an Israeli prison.

Read the entire article here. Cal Thomas is a nationally syndicated columnist who's articles are featured in over 550 newspapers across North America.

Friday, October 11, 2013

Australia'sJames Packer is planning Hollywood movie projects with screen legends Clint Eastwood and Warren Beatty as part of a $450 million film deal which will deliver spin-off benefits for his new Sydney casino resort. Mr Packer, whose Crown Ltd has increased in value by $3 billion in the last four months, said he "could not be thankful enough" to Mr. Arnon Milchan who helped seal the deal with Warner by vouching for his business acumen.

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Arnon Milchan and former Israeli Foreign Minister, Avigdor Leiberman, swooped in to the Israeli desert city of Arad in Milchan's private helicopter to inspect the location for the proposed new studio, promoted as Israel's future 'Hollywood'.

“If the studio would have been here, the movies would have been here,” Milchan told NJJN at the follow-up press conference. “If I pay Brad Pitt $20 million for a movie, I can tell him where I’m shooting it. You think Brad Pitt would rather shoot in Budapest than here? Brad will have a good time here.”

Milchan said that his new film Noah, a biblical blockbuster, would have been filmed in Israel and not Iceland had the Jewish state had a studio of the kind that he is proposing (Russell Crowe is to star in the movie, due next March.). Milchan also stated that Israel should have been the site of a forthcoming production by British director Ridley Scott based on the biblical Book of Exodus.

“There are zero worries about Israel,” he said. “Hollywood considers it the safest place in the world. And it’s no secret that Hollywood has many proud Jews and non-Jewish Zionists who make key decisions.” Milchan is clearly one of them.

An expert on how much movies cost to make and how much money they can earn, Milchan believes entering the movie-making industry could bring Israel a windfall of $5-10 billion if the state can offer tax breaks that can compete with what producers receive from other countries. Given that his good friend and protégé, Yair Lapid, is now Israeli Finance Minister, he will certainly find an open mind on that front.

“The money invested by countries comes back in jobs, hotels, restaurants, construction, tourism, etc.,” he said. “It’s also important public relations for the country. It is possible to build a first-class studio here in Arad. If we do, and there is cooperation from all sides, there is no reason why the biggest productions won’t come to Arad instead of Budapest.”

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Israeli President Shimon Peres discusses the life of Arnon Milchan
with 'Confidential' co-author Joseph Gelman at the President's office in Jerusalem.

Israeli President Shimon Peres is celebrating his 90th birthday. President Peres is a mentor and father figure to Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan. It was he who personally recruited Mr. Milchan to the service of his country. over the years, Milchan has personally introduced Holywood's top talent to President Peres, and many have arrived to celebrate the President's birthday. Even well known Jewish publications in the United States were surprised by the impressive a-listers who arrived, unaware of the deep relationships that have developed over the years. Milchan's longtime close friend, Robert de Niro let it all hang out:

﻿

“I always enjoy coming to Israel. Israelis are warm, they’re energetic people. Forthright. Very smart. I always like smart people. They’re nice people, you know. Aggressive, and I respect that aggressiveness because you need it in their situation,” De Niro said

Thursday, May 9, 2013

ROME – Arnon Milchan, who produced a long series of Hollywood successes including Fight Club, L.A. Confidential, and the epic Once Upon a Time in America, will receive the career achievement prize at the Ischia Global Film & Music Fest, organizers announced.

In a statement, Milchan said the Ischia Legends Award was a “dream come true” for him, while Pascal Vicedomini, the festival’s founder, called the 68-year-old “one of the industry’s most prolific and successful producers.”

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

﻿As documented in the book Confidential: Years ago, Yair Lapid was hired by Arnon Milchan to run the television division of New Regency Films in Los Angeles. Milchan was friends with Yair's father Tommy Lapid. The show Malcolm in the Middle was produced by New Regency during that period. The two [Yair and Arnon] developed a close friendship that has lasted to this day. When Mr. Milchan was honored at Paramount Studios a few years ago, it was Yair Lapid who was asked to give a heart-warming key-note speech about his close friend Arnon:

SIDENOTE: Yair Lapid was interviewed extensively for the book Confidential. And here's a little tip for the know-nothing media; Yair Lapid's son worked on Capital Hill for US Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) until the Senator was defeated in the 2010 midterm elections. Mark Mellman, Lapid's campaign manager also did work for Russ Fiengold. Connect the dots. Go to it... use the info without giving credit... we are use to it.

UPDATE: As predictable as the sun rising in the east, Israel's Ha'aretz, 48 hours after our post, picks up on our analysis: "Now the two good friends of Hollywood film producer Arnon Milchan can make use
of him to forge mutual trust and to create the strong axis around which the next
government will be created." You are welcome Ha'aretz.

NBC News on 'Confidential': "A movie tycoon whose life story itself is a Hollywood movie"

Media Contact Information

July 17, 2011: The New York Times Introduces 'Confidential' to the World: GROUND BREAKING.

Click on image for the full article.

Fox News: "This is a Deadly Serious Book"

Fox News and the New York Times agree on something. Click on the image for the full backstory to the writing of the book 'Confidential' as published by FoxNews.com

Fox News on the 'Confidential' story: "This is a Movie in Itself"

Additional recommended reading:

For a wider understanding of Israel's intelligence services beyond the story of one facinating man, the authors of 'Confidential' also recommend Dan Raviv and Yossi Melman's gripping book 'Spies Against Armageddon'. Click on the image to go to their Amazon page.

CNN on the 'Confidential' story: "Hollywood Execs Will Be Fighting to Get This to The Big Screen"

The Daily Beast on Confidential - The Downfall of a Top Aerospace Scientist

GUT WRENCHING: Arnon and Richard Kelly Smyth go shopping for nuke materials. Smyth is caught...escapes... and 16 years of fear and exile ensue. Click on image for the story.

'Confidential' Co-author Doron Interviews for CBS News:

Author-Signed & Personalized Copies of Confidential Available Only Here:

Contact the Authors of 'Confidential' at 202-440-3050.

Tablet Magazine: The Shocking Milchan-South African Saga

He may have produced '12 Years a Slave' as a measure of redemption, but before that he played a key, controversial and highly secret role in Aparthide South Africa. Click on image for the exclusive details.

Sky News: Arnon Milchan wishes he hadn't denied it.

Milchan's Spymaster Blumberg: "For years I carried a cyanide capsule in case I was caught"

The only known photo of Arnon Milchan's Israeli Intelligence Handler and Trainer (between 1965-1981), LAKAM Chief and Master Spy Benjamin Blumberg. "Milchan was a man I could work with". Click Image for the full story.

Richard (AKA Dr. Jon Schiller) and Emily Smyth, The Owners of 'Milco', a LAKAM Front Company

The fugitive couple who escaped to 16 years of exile in Malaga, Spain, after shipping nuclear weapons triggers (Krytrons) to their long-time business partner/LAKAM handler, Arnon Milchan. Smyth, who was caught, extradited and convicted in the case, blames Arnon Milchan for destroying his life. Click on image for the story.

Krytron - a nuclear trigger

Like in any movie production "It's always the little things that cause the most trouble" - Arnon Milchan

Urenco Nuclear Centrifuge Blueprints...

In the dead of night, Arnon Milchan secured the designs for advanced centrifuges for uranium enrichment... click on image for details:

A Fall From Grace - The Smyth mobile home

Once he was one of the most important and respected aerospace engineers in America with a waterfront mansion and a yacht. Today he lives in a little mobile home next to the railroad tracks in Lompoc, CA. Photo by Joseph Gelman. The Authors visited Mr. Smyth at his home as part of the investigative process.

Jonathan Pollard - Also a LAKAM Operative, and also handled by Rafi Eitan in 1985....

Arrested only months after Richard Kelly Smyth fled into exile in 1985 to live as a fugitive on the lam. The Smyth incident/disappearance undoubtedly played a negative role in Pollard's disproportionately harsh treatment... as US authorities were looking at that point to "send a message". Few have understood the connection between the Smyth and Pollard cases, and the time-frame. Pollard still rots in Jail, going on 29 years now.

Top Mossad operative and LAKAM Chief who was forced to resign following the Pollard Affair. Years earlier, Rafi Eitan had personally captured Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann. Eitan enjoys sculpting, and one of his sculptures sits in his friend Milchan's living room in his Malibu ocean-front mansion. Click Image for background on Rafi Eitan.

Arnon Milchan's $600,000,000 Art Collection

A less valuable sculpture by his friend Rafi Eitan sits on the living room table.

Arnon Milchan, Moshe Dayan and Leon Uris, the Author of Exodus.

It was Arnon Milchan who brokered the deal between Shimon Peres and Ariel Sharon to create the Kadima Party

Arnon Milchan and French President Jacques Chirac

Standing alongside Milchan with blond short hair is Ase Thastrom, Milchan's former longtime lover who still lives in his Chateau in France, next door to the retired French President.

Peres, Milchan, Netanyahu

The Man in the Middle...in more ways than one

Arnon Milchan, Roman Polanski and Robert De Niro behind a 'Solidarity' sign in Poland

Milchan financed a production of 'Amadeus', the first Western cultural event held in Poland since before WWII. Polanski himself played the lead role. With the fall of Communisim in Poland, President Lech Walesa invited the trio for a Robert De Niro film festival that they organized.

Martin Scorsese directs Jerry Lewis in the 'King of Comedy' As Arnon Milchan looks on

Every Tabloid on the Planet Picks up on the Brad Pitt-Angelina Jolie 'Confidential' Scoop

The Authors didn't even consider it 'news' when Milchan described to them the behind-the-scenes story of the beginning of Angelina and Brad's relationship, and the break-up with Jennifer Aniston. Apperently the tabloids considered it huge news.

Arnon Milchan and Angelina Jolie

The Secrets of the 'Secret Agents' of Mr. and Mrs. Smith

The Authors of 'Confidential', Meir Doron and Joseph Gelman

Top-notch Investigative Journalism of the 'old school' kind. The stunning Investigation that brought a super-agent in from the cold.